Posted on 08/19/2021 11:07:04 AM PDT by seanmerc
My favorite Sean Penn movie is Fast Times at Ridgemont High. That was made a long time before his politics became overwhelming.
“Just not much out there that piques my interest at all.”
The good stuff is out there. Excellent films are still being made. Finding them is the challenge.
I mostly agree with your comments above. The landing pages for the streamers have become a tedious waste of time. The algorithms are supposed to generate suggestions, but in my experience with the various streamers, the only one that ever suggests anything even remotely interesting to me is Amazon Prime.
I was mystified by this, but I now suppose it is because Amazon knows a good deal about my book and movie purchases over the last ten years. It has a lot more than my viewing history on one platform. Hmmm ... buys conservative books, civil war buff, likes traditional and classical music ... bingo, here’s a movie.
In principle, I don’t like Amazon having that much information. In practice, I do order books and music and am hoisted by my own petard.
So: how do we find out about the good stuff? I read reviews. I pay attention to “most overlooked” and “most underrated” lists. I scan the movie lists for festivals. Most of the films I survey in these ways are of no interest, but if I have even a glimmer of interest, I can follow up with a review or watch a trailer. Once it becomes a habit, this probably takes less time than starting on the Netflix landing page and searching blindly.
The main reason I started this movie ping list was to encourage freepers to engage and pass along tips. Our kinds of movies are out there. But you have to know about them first to find them.
See the trailers I listed at #17 on today’s other movie thread, the HBO: In the Same Breath discussion. You were pinged on that as well. Another freeper was venting that Sundance, being a nest of liberals, was full of communist agitprop films. The movies I listed may not be to your taste, but I would argue that all of them are culturally conservative. And none of them are communist agitprop.
We need to reengage and support the good stuff when we find it.
Classic movie.
If I ever met Sean Penn, I would begin the discussion by complimenting him on The Professor and the Madman. I’d try to bend the conversation from there. Maybe I’d make a joke about the odd couple casting and ask if Mel Gibson had converted him to Catholicism. Conversational loops. Probe and response. There’s an art to the game.
If Sean Penn can make jokes about Greta Thunberg, we can hope ....
Sean Penn graduated from Santa Monica HIGHSCHOOL. That qualifies him for a job at Burger King, Macdonalds, but not much else. Guess I missed why I should care what he thinks about anything.
Thanks for the reply. I will check out the other thread for suggestions. Feel free to PM me any list or anything that you come across too. I enjoy many of the documentaries on Amazon Prime. These last few months I found myself just re-watching Deadwood or The Wire or Sopranos for the umpteenth time; or movies I haven’t seen in ages (like, Patton) or old movies I never got around to (like, Lolita). I’ll have to do more work to find the gems as you suggested. I almost bought myself a kindle because I am so tired of the TV. Books are fine but every year I keep getting thicker and thicker readers so the kindle appeals to me that I can read books in extra large font sizes.
Amazon is a company I love to hate and hate to love.
Sean Penn did a small bit on Curb Your Enthusiasm. If you search for video of “Curb Your Enthusiasm Spite Store” there are a number of well recognized actors. Or you can see the whole episode maybe online surely on demand. From the last season. It is not safe for work (profanity) so I won’t post the link. But that is some funny stuff from a funny show by a funny guy, his politics notwithstanding he really has a way with capturing emotions or annoying life encounters and turning them into comic gold.
Not sure why you posted this here
It’s Sean Penn....leftist...fairly rich....self righteous hypocrite ..pretty volatile....it’s in his DNA
Jewish side....AFFLICT THE COMFORTABLE...COMFORT THE AFFLICTED
Irish side......pugilist hothead
Italian side....not readily apparent ....he loves DeNiro maybe
So he doesn’t like Netflix or being told how to think by other lefties
He’s still obnoxious and fairly clearly abusive to women
He needs his ass beat
Lol...made me chuckle out loud
Sweet And Low Down is the only movie I liked him in, OTT he’s not popular with me.
I certainly don’t approve of the way Sean Penn has lived his life. Nor do I approve of his politics. That said, I did find it interesting that he was willing to costar with Mel Gibson. Given his own history, I expect that he’s opposed to blacklists, in favor of giving people second chances, and putting political differences aside to collaborate on making good films. I wonder how many people in Hollywood would have refused to work with Mel Gibson for fear of what the twitter mob might say. I suspect a lot. He’s also 61 and probably has a bit of perspective. It’s been a long time since he was married to the Whore of Babylon. Not that his own morals have improved. We’ll see if he takes his current wife seriously. At least he still bothered to get married.
So I’m not defending Sean Penn. But as a matter of situational awareness, it’s good to note when someone who is generally on the other side of things identifies a common enemy. Penn is worried about what the Borg will do to the film industry. He’s concerned about what will happen to independent filmmaking when woke corporations become the sole gatekeepers with their rigid DEI templates, marketing execs who see China as the future, and woke crazies who dig through everyone’s social media history and political statements and contributions, looking for people to purge.
Sean Penn is a leftie, but he’s apparently the kind of leftie who remembers how Trotsky ended up. And he wants to make serious movies (that doesn’t mean I’ll like them, of course), not franchise tentpoles with endless prequels, sequels and spinoffs. He’s wrong about a lot, but he’s not wrong about everything.
Situational awareness: be alert when someone on the other side starts babbling sense for once.
yawn
He is smarter than you and has opinions of greater value than yours? I doubt it.
I doubt it too, on most issues. But he knows more about the movie business than I do, and I think he’s right about Netflix. When a leftist actor is critical of woke leftist media giants, maybe we should pay attention to the fault lines on the other side.
Pin has refused to return to Set there by stopping production on his latest project putting hundreds of people out of work until they follow his politics and get vaccinated
in England he would be called by men and women a cunt
Pardon language
His new 28 year old wife and daughter with Wright are both lovely
There is that
I know people who know him
One of whom bedded Theron too
What I hear isn’t good
I like Sean early on
He lived in Manhattan when I did
A lot of coverage on he and Madonna
It smelled of abuse
Just like with Robin Wright
Little guy all yoked up who wears Stallone heels and heats women
It’s hard to like him even before his looney politics
I agree with all that. I’m not defending Sean Penn personally. I was drawing notice to his criticism of the way the film industry is heading.
Yes, yes, yes, I agree with all that. But we are on tangential tracks here. Nobody here LIKES Sean Penn. But ....
If Kamala Harris said something scathingly critical about Joe Biden, we would sit up and take notice. That wouldn’t make us defenders of Kamala Harris. It’s a matter of tactical situational awareness. When the enemy is bickering amongst themselves, I’m going to look for gasoline and matches.
Sean Penn criticizing Netflix and the other streamers is like Bill Maher going to war with the cancel culture commissars. When liberals get mugged by reality, we should welcome the momentary sanity. I’m still not a fan of Bill Maher. But when he objects to Stalinist censorship, he’s right and we should say so.
Sean Penn is still a bum, but he’s right about the threat to independent filmmaking. I don’t want six global corporations with transnational, citizen-of-the-world, open borders managements, DEI committees exerting pervasive control over production, China-obsessed marketing departments, and complete contempt for what used to be America being the gatekeepers for the entire film industry. Sean Penn comes from the opposite corner of our political cage match, but he’s an independent filmmaker who is far enough out on the fringe to also see the Borg as the main threat.
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